Op-ed number nine for Liberty Features Syndicate, this cleared back on September 23rd.
Long a subject of derision from conservatives, the National Endowment for the Arts ran into more trouble earlier this month when it was revealed NEA funding was granted to artists for creating works of art designed to promote President Obama and his domestic policy agenda. This was a clear case of the taxpayer-supported NEA stepping outside the ideals under which it was created.
While some form of federal funding for the arts has occurred practically since our nation’s founding, the National Endowment was created by an act of Congress and signed by President Lyndon Johnson in 1965 as part of the Great Society. Instead of shilling for a particular candidate or issue, the endowment’s original charge was to “help create and sustain not only a climate encouraging freedom of thought, imagination, and inquiry, but also the material conditions facilitating the release of this creative talent.”
The NEA survived a funding cut in the mid-1990’s brought on by a controversy over NEA-funded artists Andres Serrano and Robert Mapplethorpe, among others, but the current allegations are much more severe because the funding supposedly went to art designed to fit a political agenda.
Obviously it’s nothing new that artistic works are created for the purpose of glorifying a person or an entity – one need only look at the Sistine Chapel or any of the numerous monuments around Washington, D.C. as examples of art intended to deify or pay tribute to a person or group. Indeed, most of the newer examples about Washington were paid for at least in part by taxpayer dollars.
Yet the idea of art sanctioned by a governing body leaves it too broadly open to interpretation as to what is reasonable or proper, particularly in this age of political correctness we live in. Further, one needs to wonder about the vanity of a leader who uses public funds to engage in political propaganda masquerading as artistic effort rather than allowing free expression and encouraging the improvement of public taste and culture.
Those who are not the prototypical starving artists should not be fed on the taxpayer’s dime, regardless of whether public tastes favor their works or not. Needless to say, what is considered beauty is in the eye of the beholder and one man’s masterpiece might get quizzical looks from someone else; in either case the decision should not come at the cost of a taxpayer-funded grant. Millions of people make the choice on their own to cultivate and promote culture through donations and their patronage of many worthwhile artistic events. It’s clear the public good is not well served by government picking and choosing winners in the artistic field, and using art to promote a self-serving political agenda reeks of the practices of the worst tyrants the world has known.
In a political climate as charged as ours coupled with a government set on bailing out its friends in the business world, this usage of the National Endowment for the Arts for crass political purposes places the onus on Congress to finish a job it half-heartedly started a decade ago. It’s long past time to save the American people over $150 million and withdraw federal funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. Simply convert the NEA into a completely private entity and let them compete in the free market just as millions of those who make their living in the artistic field manage to do every day.
Then if artists wish to promote a political agenda at least it won’t be paid for through funds confiscated from the American taxpayer.
Michael Swartz is a Liberty Features Syndicated writer.
